Tag: Cuba
I hope we’ve learned unilateral withdrawal is a bad idea
Judging from my inbox, a lot of people around the world are thinking the US withdrawal from Afghanistan could be prelude to withdrawal elsewhere. I think the opposite is true. The Afghanistan debacle will make it difficult to discuss withdrawal almost anywhere for at least two and likely three years.
President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan completely, thus fulfilling (four months late) the terms of President Trump’s agreement with the Taliban, has strong support across the political spectrum in Washington. But the way it was done was shambolic. Biden failed to ensure either a negotiated “decent interval” from the Taliban or a commitment of the Afghan security forces to defend the country’s government. There appears to have been no serious transition plan. The Americans literally withdrew from Bagram air base, the biggest in Afghanistan, in the dark of night, without consulting or informing the local Afghan commander.
It may well be that this was done to prevent panic, as President Biden has implied. But that was an ill-considered plan. Did anyone really think things would go more smoothly without Afghan cooperation?
The “Saigon in Kabul” scenes will inoculate the Administration against any further withdrawals, at least until a second Biden term. There will of course be force adjustments for operational reasons, some of them potentially major, like getting the American aircraft out of Al Udeid in Qatar. They are exposed to Iranian missiles and will need to be moved if there are going to be hostilities, or even the threat of hostilities, with Tehran. I wouldn’t mind seeing fewer US troops committed in autocracies like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, but those would need to be carefully considered and well-executed. We may not like their style of governance, but replacements could be worse. I would expect no major drawdowns in places like Iraq, Kosovo, Cuba (Guantanamo), Japan, South Korea, or Europe, unless they are negotiated and agreed with the local authorities.
The only major US commitment under discussion in Washington these days is to Taiwan. China is growing in military strength. Taiwanese, watching Hong Kong and Xinjiang, are less interested in reunification and increasingly interested in independence. It is no longer as clear as it once was that the US has both the means and the will to defend against a Chinese attack, even if it is eminently clear the Taiwanese would make a takeover difficult for Beijing. But there are no deployed American ground forces in Taiwan, so no question of withdrawal. I assume the US Navy will continue to make its presence felt in Western Pacific and seek to improve its posture in defending the first island chain.
It has been clear for two decades that the US does not want to be the world’s policeman, patroling worldwide. I doubt Americans even want to serve as the world’s fireman, reacting to conflagrations as a first responder. The arguments for retrenchment are strong. But the consequences of withdrawal, especially when unilateral, can be catastrophic. I hope we’ve learned that much.
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Stevenson’s army, August 9
– Global warming is accelerating, IPCC says.
– Interagency meeting on “Havana Syndrome” finds more questions than answers.
– Senate glides toward infrastructure passage.
– Biden names critic to oversee NordStream2 deal.
Book note: I’ve just read the policy sections of Carter Malkasian’s book,The American War in Afghanistan. [He also has detailed chapters on US military operations.] My reaction:
Who lost Afghanistan? is the wrong question. It assumes agency, when few complex events are monocausal, and it seeks to assign blame, where responsibilities are widely shared. Better to ask, why did things turn out that way?
In his wide-ranging and detailed study of the conflict in Afghanistan during 2001-2021, The American War in Afghanistan [Oxford University Press],Carter Malkasian finds many moments of missed opportunities for peace and many questionable decisions that made things worse. A Pashto-speaking civilian working in Afghanistan who later served as a special assistant to CJCS General Dunford, Malkasian knows both American and Taliban officials as well as the territory and culture of Afghanistan.
The war brought benefits to many Afghans, but it also built resistance to outsiders that has long been a feature of Afghan history. “Afghanistan cleaved into an urban democracy and a rural Islamic order,” Malkasian writes. He mentions the impact of government incompetence and corruption and the role of Pakistan support for the Taliban, but ultimately concludes that the Taliban fighters had a greater willingness to kill and to be killed than their opponents. [He notes that one Taliban leader proudly sent his own son as a suicide bomber.]
“[T]he Taliban stood for what it meant to be Afghan.…Tainted by its alignment with the United States, the [Kabul] government had a much weaker claim to these values and thus a much harder time motivating supporters to go to the same lengths.”
Malkasian documents many consequential choices made by the Americans:
– refusing to allow any power sharing with the Taliban;
– failing to do much to build up the Afghan army and police during 2001-5 [in part of course, because of the U.S. turn to fight a war in Iraq];
– U.S. military tactics that killed many civilians and alienated others;
– overly optimistic U.S. generals that their ways would work;
– insufficient U.S. air strikes in 2014-15;
– ruptured relations with the Karzai government;
– mishandled peace talks in 2019-20 that rewarded the Taliban while leaving many crucial issues unsettled.
Maybe we need to revise the adage and conclude that defeat, not victory, has 100 fathers in this case.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, July 30
– Former SASC chairman Carl Levin has died. Like John Warner, an effective statesman.
– Philippines keeps US forces agreement intact.
–Biden invites Cuban Americans to announcement of more sanctions.
-SAIS prof Frank Gavin discusses lessons from history.
-CSET criticizes DOD’s “innovation tourism.”
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, July 12
–Biggest protests in Cuba in years.
–Defense companies keep raking in the dollars.
–Russia has a new national security strategy and it includes climate change.
-WOTR reports on the fight over Diego Garcia. [I hope you can open this link, if not just go to Punchbowl]
-Punchbowl lays out the Congressional options for the next several busy weeks.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).–
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Stevenson’s army, May 3
-Politico notes problems for Biden’s Iran policy from both D’s & R’s.
– Lawfare piece argues [correctly in my view] that congressional action on Cuba in 1962 mattered in resolution of the Cuba crisis.
– Defense magazine questions the hype in hypersonic weapons.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, March 29
– Bob Gates says US needs a dual-hatted DHS/NSA deputy for domestic cyber.
– Kori Schake says Biden is wrong to sanction NordStream 2. But two GOP members of Congress criticize Biden for not being tougher on the issue. [FYI, Congress did pass a law requiring sanctions]
-The Hill says Biden is in no rush to change Cuba policy.
-Reminder: Nunn-Lugar is still working .
-The Hill says F-35 is in serious trouble.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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